


it's a metaphor, see?

by waferkya



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2012-11-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 15:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waferkya/pseuds/waferkya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The reason he ends up a smoker is because sometimes, he just needs a time out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's a metaphor, see?

**Author's Note:**

> What am I even doing oh well it's [Brappu](http://braocean.tumblr.com)'s fault anyway so yeah. Also [this post](http://braocean.tumblr.com/post/34413873729) and Zayn/smoking = OTP I guess?

The reason he ends up a smoker is because sometimes, he just needs a time out. A cigarette is the most polite solution he can come up with, so he steps out of bedrooms, classrooms, cinemas, pubs, into hallways and backyards and dark alleys; he steps out of his time and takes drag after drag after drag.

The first time smoke meets his throat, he chokes on it, but he’s so scared of someone walking in on him he coughs as discreetly as it gets. The second time, somehow he keeps it down; it fills his lungs with a weight that air never has, except maybe in the winter when it gets sharper than knives, and he feels weird, his balance tipped off scale. Like something’s making him heavier and it’s not his heart, for once.

He thinks he likes the twisted irony in that; to try and catch his breath, he has to squeeze his chest into a knot.

He keeps his freedom in his pocket now, seven pounds a packet, and it’s quite inexpensive, all things considered. He’s perfectly fine with taking a minute or two or twelve, every now and then, just for himself; to lean back into a wall or sit in his favourite spot at the park or perch himself on top of a fire escape whenever he can find one, because that feels very dramatic and besides, there’s something about watching a town, any town, and life from above.

His head is lighter with every drag he breathes in, but the smoke weighing down his lungs keeps him anchored to the ground. Zayn poisons himself with freedom and it feels great.

*

When Liam finds him sitting next to an open window it’s late at night, there’s nobody else around. Zayn tears his eyes off the streetlamp he’d been staring at, right across the street, and he had no idea his chest could get any more clenched than it does when he smokes in too much at a time, but apparently, there’s no limit.

Liam doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t even breathe all that loudly. He sits on the floor, his back to the wall, and he puts up a hand like he’s saying, _let’s share that_. Zayn can’t say he’s surprised, not really. Liam has already messed with everything else in Zayn’s life, tilting it upside down and inside out; it was just a matter of time until he got in on this, too.

Zayn offers the cigarette to Liam and Liam takes it without missing a beat; he doesn’t brush their fingers together, not even a little, but when he gives it back, the smoke tastes different.

  


> _It’s a metaphor, see?_  
>  _You put the killing thing_  
>  _right between your teeth,_  
>  _but you don’t give it the power to do its killing._  
>  John Green, “The Fault in Our Stars”  
> 


End file.
